


Don't Need To Tell Me How to Be a Man

by jesseofthenorth



Category: The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Schmoop, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 04:55:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesseofthenorth/pseuds/jesseofthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake knows what he needs to do and he is damn well going to do it</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Need To Tell Me How to Be a Man

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-series character piece written for the adulthood square on my card which can be found [here](http://jesseofthenorth.livejournal.com/141716.html) or [here](http://jesseofthenorth.dreamwidth.org/120462.html)

_Acting your age fucking sucks. Sucks balls, in fact._

Jensen's feet pound the ground, the jolt runs up his shins, a flash of fire he has to run through if he wants to make it. 

There can be no quitting. He can't even afford to slow down, has to keep going, no matter what. This is what it means, being a grown-up. It fucking sucks, and everything fucking aches, and he's hungry, and hot and tired and beat to hell and chewed to shit by bugs and rats, but who fucking cares because he's going to do this. Because they need him. Beth and the baby. They already have one useless dead beat asshole trying to drag them down. That is never going to be Jake Jensen, he is going to be the guy who holds them up and makes life better for them until they can make it better for themselves. He just has to keep running. 

,

He runs, he sweats, he swears, he carries his own body weight on shoulders that are so far past pain they are fucking numb by the end of every day. He hates almost every fucking second of this but Jake keeps his bitching to minimum, and always does it under his breath. 

He plays the game and stays in line and lies about how bad his eyes are. He shoots shit and blows shit up and drags crap around while some asshole yells in his ear. When they try to use words to beat him down and break him Jake thinks about that little baby girl and how scared his sister looks sometimes, then he straightens his shoulders and bellows “Yes Sargent!” and keeps right on going. 

He learns to play on a team even though the idea of him ever being a team player is ludicrous at best. Jake Jensen does it any way, because he is not going to be that guy. Not when there have already been so many versions of that guy in their lives already, starting with their asshole fucking father and ending with the latest douche-bag who knocked his sister up and then ran like hell. (That fucker better keep running because when Jake Jensen finds him he is going to come to a deeper understanding of what it,s really like to be fucked)

Q school is every chance he ever wanted for them and he is not going to wash out. Even if everything hurts and he just wants crawl under a rock and die in peace.

He can die later. After he gets the better benefits and the pay raise and the huge life insurance that will mean freedom for his sister and his niece no matter what becomes of him. He can save them and make the world a better place and maybe then Jake can look himself in the eye without flinching.

Acting your age fucking sucks. But he is going to do any way. For them and for himself, because that's what love does for you and to you, and he won't ever regret trying to give them a chance.

He just hopes it's worth it in the end.


End file.
